


Prepare for Battle

by rlb190



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Evolution
Genre: Inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean, Kurt needs a hug, Pirates, Slave Trade, everyone is a pirate, literally everyone are pirates, or freed slaves, raven is a bitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10572768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rlb190/pseuds/rlb190
Summary: Kurt Wagner, son of a wealthy plantation owner, moves from England to the colonies to live on his father's plantation in Jamaica. Experiencing slaves for the first time puts an upset feeling in his stomach, so is the plan his his step-mother, Raven, came up with; to marry him off to her niece in order to gain control of her late husband's estate. When pirates visit the plantation and burn it, Kurt makes a choice. Together, he and slave named Scott flee to the pirate and enlist, facing freedom for the first time on international waters. However, Raven won't give up her only claim to all that money easily, and it's a race against time with Captain Logan's motley crew to stop Raven and uncover a secret that goes deeper than the ocean itself.





	1. Prolouge

**Author's Note:**

> This is really just a one-shot piece I've had in my brain for awhile. I'm not sure if I want to go on with it or not.

_You never forget the first attack._

 Kurt was cotton mouthed and terrified, standing at the ready, waiting to hear the two ships grind and splinter together. The waiting is the worst of it. Kurt had seen strong men turn pale as putty, and dash to the heads to relieve themselves, or vomit over the side. No-one made any comment. No-one mocks or jeers at them, even these men and woman who seem to laugh in the face of death itself. They stare straight ahead, gripping weapons and grappling hooks, half pikes, axes and hatchets. Sometimes, Logan ordered drums and cymbals to add to the clamor, or the cannons fired, filling the air with the reek of powder, so they boarded through blinding billows of smoke. Once on the prize, then it was different. The fear did not compare with the terror we instilled in the ordinary crew and passengers. They would board with reckless boldness, and if the prize offered resistance, it was kill or be killed.

 

Scott stood with Kurt as their first fight came, pistols primed and slung about him, his cutlass honed and as sharp as a razor, axe hanging heavy from his belt. He could not keep his legs from shaking, his knuckles were white from gripping the rail, but Scott had a stillness about him, his features as calm and expressionless as if they had been carved from ironwood. Kurt has seen the look before, on the faces of Jean and Kitty and the other slaves when confronted by the ruthless Duke Erik in his fury. It was not resignation, more a refusal to show any reaction to whatever fate was about to enfold him. Kurt was green and sick with nervousness. Scott suddenly put his hand on Kurt’s to steady him, whispering through the cannon's roar.

'We will watch out for each other. We will not be afraid.'

And so they leapt the gap between the ships together, ready to fight and die for each other.


	2. It Begins

Kurt was of a roving frame of mind, even as a child, and for years he had wanted nothing more than to go sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. However, one summer morning in 1722, his wish was granted, but no quite the way he had wanted.

Kurt sailed out of the port of Bristol on board the _Xavier_ , with sailors wearing black armbands and the colors flying at half-mast. The day had dawned dull and cold, the wind gusting rain into their faces. It was if the world was feeling Kurt’s mourning.

He father, a German immigrant, had built his fortune as a sugar merchant and a salve trader. He owned plantation in Jamaica, where Kurt was bound. He did not know why, his father’s dying wish, is all Raven would say, Raven being his father’s second wife. He was not yet sixteen years old, so Kurt was neither asked nor consulted. Raven assumed he was stupid, but Kurt was far from it. He knew enough not to trust her, and he was about to be proven right. He was sure Raven has sold him as surely as any African they trafficked from the coast of Guinea.

Kurt felt the rain fall upon me, darkening his black, nearly blue, hair, running down his face in rivulets and dripping from his chin. The sky was crying around him, misery wrapped around him like he soaking cloak.

They left the harbor and entered a snaking gorge. It was high on either side, the tops of cliffs lost in the clouds. Slowly, the ship crept on, pulled by oarsmen, inching its way between towering crags that seemed to narrow the Channel to a hand span and threated to clash together and crush the ship. Kurt almost wished it would.

The pilot yelled directions, calling the depths, guiding the ship as it crawled from the straits of the Avon and out towards Hungroad’s mud flats and dismal marshes. There, a gibbet hung low over the water, freighted with the body of some poor convicted sailor, tarred and tied tight with chains, suspended in an iron cage to creak out a warning to every passing ship.

Kurt felt his stomach wrench as they gained passage to the open Channel. Kurt looked around the deck, the few passengers had hurried out of the weather long ago, scurrying down below, leaving only him and the sailors on deck.

The sailors busied themselves about their duties, working around Kurt, keeping their eyes averted. He wasn’t asked to move, or sent down below. They felt him alone out of respect for his sorrow, the loss of his father. That is what Kurt hoped, but talk runs fast through portside inns, perhaps they knew more than Kurt did.

The order rang out: ‘Make sail!’ and the sailors worked even harder as the sails filled and the ship heeled, tacking against the westerly wind to gain the deep sea roads. The water beneath them swirled red with mud swept down by nearby rivers. The ship began to plunge as river and tide met together in choppy waves. Kurt clung on tight, hands white on rail. As they drew away from land, the rain intensified, blurring sea and sky together. All around the horizon disappeared into blowing grey. The ship was beating against the tide and taking a buffeting from the wind. Kurt, not being used to the ship’s motion, staggered as the ship dipped into a wave and rose again. He nearly fell, but was gripped from behind and help upright by Raven, his step mother.

“Come, Kurt.” She said. “It’s time to go below. You are getting in the way of the sailors! They have enough to do without the worry of you falling overboard.” Raven led him below the deck, making a show of smiling kindness and motherly concern for the benefit of any who might have been watching.  Normally, Raven wouldn’t have cared if Kurt fell overboard. But now, if he gone overboard, her future would have fallen into the sea as well.

Raven left him in the hands of a steward, a kind looking younger man named Robert, although he asked Kurt to call him Bobby. Bobby helped Kurt out of his soaked cloak, and fussed and clucked over the state of his clothes. Most people who frequented the seas shared a similar distrust of the damp, being at the root of most illness. He brought Kurt hot broth to drink, but at the sight and small of it, he felt sick.

“I’m sure it’s very nice, but…” Kurt couldn’t finish his sentence and barley reached the bucket in time. Kurt shivered as Bobby grimaced at his sea-sickness. He brought Kurt so dry clothes and brought him some warm bricks. Kurt got into his bunk with the bricks tucked around his feet, shaking and puking by turns. He had never felt so ill, he thought he was going to die.

“That’s what everyone thinks.” Bobby said with a grin. “It’ll get better in time. I’ll look back on you later.”

Kurt sighed and laid back in his bunk, cursing the ocean itself and recalled a saying, that those who go to sea either look forward or back. What was set for him in the future remained obscure. He had no choice but to reflect on his life so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite sure how I feel about this story... I've practically destroyed my sleep pattern reading about pirates, so I might just give up and work on a more pirate-centered piece. Who knows? Thanks to all the readers who convinced me not to just leave it as a one shot! I'm actually really liking my plans for Remy and Scott. Mostly Remy~! Check this summary that's gonna be part of this story, switching from Kurt to Scott and so on and so forth... 'There hasn't been a French pirate on the seas as deadly and quite as alluring. Many men and women have fallen victim to his charms. The Dread Pirate never takes prisoners. He is as cruel as he is beautiful. But his alliances change when he meets a young pirate whose very existence makes Remy question his beliefs as the moral-less pirate.'
> 
> Pretty good, no? I might just want to write that story on its own.... but Kurt needs a hug.... Who knows?
> 
> xoxo,  
> rlb190


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